jacosta24

Waking up in the morning was always hard for me. Ever since I was a little kid my mom would be constantly yelling at me to wake up. I used to hide under the blankets and tell my mom I was looking for my socks and would go back to sleep. My laziness carried on into my teenage years, I was always in trouble for being late in high school, it was like pulling teeth to get me out of bed. As a young adult I was always getting fired for coming in late or missing days at work. It was like I had no self control.

Finally something clicked and I learned about sacrifice. I was working for a crappy agency but the job I was assigned to was really laid back. I would see the guys that actually worked for the company making good money, driving nice cars, and relaxing it up while I was stuck working outside. One day I made it my goal to come into work on time, never miss days, be a great worker, and get hired on directly to that company. 10 months later I accomplished that goal and I've been with that company for 6 years making a decent living.

It wasn't easy but I was persistent and it it paid off. I did the same with poker and I had a similar result. I was successful at tournament poker because I realized that if you had a solid strategy and a decent bankroll to withstand the variance, you could make money if you kept coming back and playing day after day win or lose. Persistence is key.

This week reminds me of those early days. I had a tough go at the virtual tables. It's been hard to find tournaments for the stakes I want to play running on my favorite site so I've been jumping around to different sites, trying to find good games. Early in the week, I was playing some micro stakes and didn't have any success. I managed to find some higher buy-in games later on in the week, but getting used to the players, structures, and software does have a learning curve.

This week I ran and played horrible, thank god I was playing mostly micro stakes. I played 8 tournaments/sngs and min cashed in 1 for -$127. I was feeling kind of bummed out because leading up the final week before the WSOP I was playing and running bad. I felt like I should be crushing the game especially at the lower stakes but that totally wasn't the case. I was playing very fast, losing focus, making bad hero calls, pretty much playing the worst I've played since I started writing again.

I didn't give up though, I stayed persistent. I knew that if I played my game and ran my strategies against my opponents success was inevitable. Saturday I hit my local Casino and late registered a $65 buy-in 86 player tournament where 1st place is a Colossus seat and $600 spending cash. Right away I was seated at a table with some drunk crazy guy that was playing any two. I doubled up against him with A-K vs his 6-4 all in preflop and few hands later busted him with A-J vs his 2-5. After that I opened up and started playing my game, picking up pots with little to no resistance.

I cruised through the middle stages, and I was never really in trouble until around 22 players left. I was card dead and I began to get short, so I started to shove in spots, to pick up chips to keep me alive. In one key hand, it was folded around to me on the button, and I shoved my 10 big blind stack with A-10. The small blind folded and the big blind quickly called, turning over A-J. Luckily I hit a 10 on the flop, and doubled up. This give me a decent chipstack that allowed me to accumulate chips again, get through the bubble, and make the final table.

At the final table I started 8 out of 10 in chips, but the structure was pretty good, so I knew I wasn't in trouble. I maneuvered my chip stack nicely, and kept moving up the pay ladder. I had a couple chances to build a monster chip stack, but I lost a flip with my A-Q vs J-J and another with A-K vs 7-7. You have to win these type of hands to win tournaments, I kept losing the big pots, but winning enough small pots to stay alive. Finally 4 handed my 3 remaining opponents played a pot where pretty much all the chips got in the middle, and the board read 4-10-6-10-2, one guy had 10-J, the other had 10-8, and the winner held 4-4.

Talk about a cooler. One guy was out, the other was crippled, and the chip leader had about 70% of the chips in play. I busted the crippled player with K-J vs K-10 a few hands later, and started playing heads up against my opponent with 20% of the chips. I could never get anything going and keep getting re-raised all in, so I started shoving hoping to double up and get some chips to make some moves with. Unfortunately, I shoved with K-7, and my opponent woke up with pocket 10's, and they held. I was a little bummed out, but not that much. I played a great game, I made 2nd, and won $805 in a little over 5 and half hours of play.

Overall I finished the week up $613 profit, a good way to enter the final week of my preparation before the WSOP. My successful week wouldn't of came without persistence. I wanted to give up and take the rest of the week off when I was playing bad, but I kept playing, and hit a nice score. You can too, just be persistent, put in the hard work, and I promise it will pay off.

So till next time, good luck out there.